And We'll Be Free
by PunkPinkPower
Summary: Leo and Karone spend a week on Terra Venture as 8 year olds, thanks to one of Trakeena's monsters. When not causing mischief, Leo helps Karone have the childhood she missed out on.


Notes: You said "overgrown children" but my brain heard "de-aging fic". I really, really hope you still enjoy this. Written for SailorSol for Power Ranger Day 2013.

"Hey, excuse me," Maya says to her as she's looking around, confused, "Have you seen the Power Rangers around anywhere?"

Karone tilts her head at Maya. "What? Maya, what do you mean?"

Maya freezes as she stares at her, and Karone stands from the ground where she'd been knocked down. Only… that's strange. She is standing, but she only seems to come up to Maya's hip. Has she been shrunk?

"I'm sorry," Maya says, drawing her attention back, "How do you know who I am?"

"Maya," Karone says, putting her hands on her hips, "It's me, Karone. Don't you recognize me?"

Maya looks her up and down, and then Maya demorphs to look at her. "Karone?"

Karone nods, and then Maya is bending over to look at her eyes closer.

"It is you!" Maya says, smiling at first but then frowning. "What happened?"

"I don't know. Leo and I were fighting Trakeena…" Karone looks around, suddenly concerned for her red ranger. "And then she must have shrunk me."

"Karone," Maya says, grimacing, "You aren't shrunk. You're, well… You're little, but a different kind of little."

Karone frowns at her. "What do you mean?"

"Maya!" Damon's voice echoes from behind her, and Karone turns to see Damon and Kai walking up to them with a young boy in a red shirt. "I think we have a problem!"

* * *

"Leo, sit still!" Kai insists, but Leo can't help himself. His legs want to be moving, want to be running, and his arms feel jittery. He wants to be doing things, wants to be yelling at the top of his lungs. It's a phase he grew out of years ago, but now it's renewed, and he just giggles to himself as he slides down to the floor and rolls around happily.

Karone sits daintily on the sofa and stares at him.

"Oh my god, I have never seen a kid this hyper before," Kai says, throwing his hands up and walking away, and Leo cackled delightfully.

He rolls over to Karone's feet, but she pulls them out of the way. "Come on," he tells her, "You should try it!"

Karone just lifts her eyebrows like she thinks he's nuts.

"Okay, Leo," Damon says, and Leo rolls towards his feet, "Do you remember anything else about what Trakeena said before you got, uh, kidified?"

"De-aged," Kai corrects, and Leo suspects he's pouring himself a drink.

Leo just shrugs, rolls around the floor some more.

"Karone?" Damon asks.

Karone shakes her head with a frown. "It must be some kind of spell. I can feel the residual slippery feeling of magic, but I've never seen anything like this before."

"Residual?" Leo asks, amused, "Karone, what 8-year-old talks like that?"

"I'm not 8 years old," Karone insists defiantly, "I may have the appearance of an 8-year-old, but my dignity and vocabulary have remained intact, which is more than I can say for you."

Leo sticks his tongue out at her. Karone rolls her eyes.

"Okay," Maya says thoughtfully from the window, "If it's a spell, there must be a way to break it or counteract it. Maybe the galaxy book will have more information?"

Kai nods from the counter and he heads for the door.

"I have a duty shift to get back to," Damon tells Maya, who gives him a pleading look. "Have fun!"

Leo sits up from his place on the floor, stares at a clearly worried Maya. "Should I tell you how many babysitters my family went through with me when I was this age?"

Maya grimaces. "Leo, I know that you feel younger, but please, you can't get into too much trouble like this. We can't exactly explain how you two got turned into kids, and the GSA might think you're alien spies."

"Oh, alien spies," Leo says, contemplating.

Karone comes up beside him, one hand on her hip. Her other hand reaches for his ear, and Leo lets out a loud yell as she boxes it and pulls him to his feet. "Don't worry Maya. I'll keep him in line."

"Ow," Leo protests as Karone lets go of his ear.

This is going to be a challenge.

* * *

For the most part, the other rangers try to stay with them. Karone feels slightly annoyed at the idea of having a babysitter, but it's clear that Leo at least needs one.

But when Trakeena shows up again with a new monster, the others have to go, and Karone is stuck trying to make sure Leo doesn't blow up Terra Venture.

"Karone," Leo says, looking very annoyed with her, "We were just talking the other day about how you never got to have a childhood. This is _perfect_. Now is the time to actually experience what it's like to be a kid!"

Karone crosses her arms at him. It isn't like she hasn't thought about that. There would be no better time to let go and enjoy herself. Leo isn't telling her anything she doesn't already know. "Leo, this is serious. Without us the other rangers are significantly weakened, and the city is in danger. We can't only be thinking of ourselves!"

"_Karone_," Leo says her name like it's the heaviest object he's ever lifted, "You can't pass up this opportunity. You will regret it forever it tomorrow morning we turn back into adults and you didn't at least take the time to run through a field or watch a puppet show!"

Leo has a point. Karone sighs at him. "Well, maybe we could have a hot fudge sundae, but only on the megaship, under DECA's supervision."

Leo smirks. "Why, afraid you'll forget you're really a big serious adult?"

Karone tries not to smile. "I just want her to be able to put up a force field around you when you get hyped up on the sugar."

* * *

Leo orders the biggest hot fudge sundae Karone has ever seen. It's so big that it barely fits in the synthatron.

"Leo!" Karone scolds, but it also looks delicious.

"Go big or go home!" Leo declares, shoveling a spoon into the behemoth of a dessert and grinning madly.

Karone takes a somewhat smaller bite, but the ice cream and hot fudge taste very sweet in her mouth and she can't help but grin as she digs in with him. She tries, very briefly, to forget that she really isn't a kid, and just enjoy it. She kicks her feet underneath her like she's seen Leo doing, and gets ice cream all around her mouth without worrying about wiping it off.

It's actually quite pleasant.

"I feel obligated to inform you that the nutritional value of this dish is"- DECA begins, but Leo cuts her off.

"DECA, not now," Leo says around a spoonful of ice cream, waving a hand, "Can't you see the lady is enjoying herself?"

"DECA," Karone says instead, curiously, "What are some typical activities for children of KO-35?"

"Please specify a type of activity," DECA says, and Karone considers.

Across the table, Leo has his eyebrows raised at her expectantly, so she gives in and says, "Recreational."

"Traditional recreational activities include telekinetic games, such as Hover Ball, Kinetic Squares-"

"EEE!" Leo lets out a sound like a buzzer going off. "Something without Telekinesis, DECA."

DECA continues. "When they were young, Andros and Zhane very much enjoyed the construction of defensive fortresses from soft fiber materials."

Leo frowns for a moment, and then says, "Oh, sweet, pillow forts!"

He jumps down from his chair, despite the sundae being only half finished and dashes off down the hall.

"Leo!" Karone calls after him. She shoves another large big of ice cream in her mouth and starts running after him.

* * *

Leo has a homing sense for supplies when it comes to building pillow forts. He has them loaded up with enough pillows and blankets to make the best fort ever.

The hard part is construction. DECA provides them with one of the larger bedrooms, and Karone finds some rather strong tape so that they can hang some of the blankets. They stack the pillows along with some large foam cubes DECA directs them to, some of which are red and yellow.

When it's finished, Leo says them should play pretend, and act out an invasion. Karone responds by searching the database for historic earth battles, and Leo rolls his eyes and drags her over.

It takes her a longer time than he'd like to get into it. For the first while, it's like he's playing by himself. Finally, he stands up, hands on hips, and says, "I'm sorry, did you want to play tea party instead?"

Karone narrows her eyes at the challenge. She picks up one of the small pillows and tosses it out of the fort like a grenade and shouts, "Fire in the hole!"

Leo giggles.

They play for a while against an imaginary enemy, which eventually devolves to them attacking each other with pillows and laughing hysterically, and then the door to the room is opening.

Karone jumps up and dusts herself off, startled. Leo remains laying on the floor, where Karone had just mortally wounded him.

"There you guys are," Maya says, coming into the room. "DECA said I'd find you here."

"We were just," Karone begins, and she hastily kicks Leo to get up, but he remains on the floor, "Reenacting a strategic battle from earth's history. The Alamo. For strategic purpose."

Leo snorts, but he does eventually get up.

Maya nods, grins like she knows better but won't say anything. "Kai's made dinner."

* * *

At dinner, Mike joins them for the first time all day. It's clear he's been apprised of the situation, but he still walks in and does a double take at Karone and Leo on their booster chairs, enjoying their dinner.

"I'm having a nightmare," Mike declares, to which Leo cackles evilly.

"Hey Mike," he says, mouth full, "You like see-food?" And he opens his mouth to show Mike his partially chewed food.

Mike looks very abused. Karone shoots him an apologetic look, because he's already had to deal with Leo as a kid once and that had to have been hard enough.

"Any leads on changing them back yet?" Mike asks Kai, who shakes his head remorsefully.

"Trakeena used some sort of magic mirror on them," Kai tells him, and launches into an explanation of a plan to get it back.

Karone is trying to listen, but Leo nudges her arm and she looks over at him. He's holding his spoon in a strange way with food in it. Karone makes a face, and Leo wiggles his eyebrows.

Karone realizes what he's going to do just before he does it, and Maya and Kai end up with food splattered across their faces.

Maya gasps. "Leo!" She shouts, laughing, and Leo jumps off his chair to run away as she chases him around the room.

Kai patiently wipes the food off his face with a napkin, and Karone reaches across the table for his glass.

"More wine?" She asks, holding up the wine bottle from the middle of the table.

* * *

Leo's list of activities for Day 2 requires approval from Damon, who nixes all but two things. They are allowed to go outside to play, and to watch movies on the megaship.

"Yeah," Leo says, waving his hands as they walk down the hall, "I suppose booby trapping Commander Stanton's room was a little ambitious."

Karone just shakes her head at him.

* * *

"I love this part!" Leo laughs, tossing popcorn in his mouth.

"I don't understand," Karone asks, contemplating the movie, "Do the humans know the Muppets are Muppets?"

Leo shrugs. "What does that matter?"

"My suspension of disbelief only goes so far," Karone answers, still contemplating the movie. The pig and the frog seem to be singing a love ballad now that they are hanging over the cliff. "That's a very inappropriate time to be singing about your feelings."

"Hey, watch this!" Leo says, and he takes some popcorn and tosses it up in the air and catches it in his mouth.

Karone scoffs. "I can do that."

"It's harder than it looks," Leo says, but Karone takes some popcorn in her hand and tosses it in the air.

The popcorn hits her in the eye.

"See?" Leo asks. Karone tries again.

She finally catches it, and Leo gives her a 'so-so' gesture. "One out of seven isn't terrible."

They practice catching popcorn in their mouths until the movie ends.

* * *

"I am not doing that," Karone insists, folding her arms.

Leo splashes around in the mud more. "Then you're the only 8-year-old in all of existence that won't."

"Playing in the mud is an Earth thing," Karone insists, "Kerovian children are very cleanly."

Leo gives her a look like she is the biggest liar he has ever met. Karone lifts her head.

So, naturally, Leo splashes her with the mud. She really should have seen that one coming.

By the time they get back to the room for dinner, they are absolutely covered.

"Look at you two!" Maya insists, flabbergasted, "You are a mess! Get in the shower, right now!"

Damon makes a joke about how having kids is aging Maya, and she goes over to smack him playfully.

"Didn't take you for the playing in the mud kind," Kai tells Karone, looking her up and down.

Karone grins. "I'm not, but I had to. He had to be taught a lesson."

Kai raises an eyebrow. "Did you teach him it?"

Karone grins victoriously. "I whooped him."

Kai smirks, and he offers Karone a low-five.

* * *

"We have a serious problem," Kai is saying when Leo and Karone come back from the megaship the next day.

"What do you mean by permanent?" Maya asks, and Karone's attention snaps to them.

"That's what they said," Kai says, holding up his hands, "That if the spell wasn't reversed by the setting sun on the fifth day, they'd remain kids forever."

"We'll be 8-years-old forever?" Karone asks, her eyes widening.

"Cool," Leo says, and the entire room stares daggers at him. "Or, no, yeah, problematic, right."

"It's already the third day," Damon says, shaking his head, "And we've had no luck getting that mirror off the monster."

"We have to think of something," Karone says, feeling frantic.

"I have an idea," Leo says, grinning, "But it's going to require some kidding around."

* * *

Leo's plan takes a couple of tries. It would have worked the first time if Karone had been able to get into it, but he thinks she probably didn't believe his theory to begin with.

But a monster who can turn adults into kids? There had to be a reason behind that.

Sure enough, that monster loves playing. And while he's playing tag with Karone and Leo, the other rangers are able to steal back the mirror.

Leo and Karone wait on the sidelines during the battle, watching the others defeat the monster.

"It's kind of sad," Karone says, as the megazords destroy him, "I mean, he just wanted someone to play with."

* * *

"Okay you two," Damon says, holding out the mirror, "Ready to return to adulthood?"

Leo glances over at Karone, who is glancing at him.

"Do you suppose we could have just one more hot fudge sundae?" She asks, and Leo giggles while the mirror's magic starts to shimmer around them.

* * *

That night, Leo looks everywhere for Karone. She's not in her quarters, and she isn't in the lab. He's jogging back out to see if she's in the field when he runs into Maya, who tells him she was going to the megaship.

DECA lets him know where she is when he asks, and he finds himself smiling.

The lights in the room are dim, but the door is open.

"Knock, knock," he says as he enters the pillow fort.

Karone is sitting the middle of it, her knees pulled up to her chest, and she turns her head and gives him a small smile as he crawls inside the fort with her.

"This seemed bigger a few days ago," he says, nestling himself up in the corner and pushing one of the hanging blankets around.

Karone laughs. "What are you doing here?"

Leo shrugs. "Could ask you the same thing."

"I came to clean it up," Karone says, looking around at the very well constructed pillows, "But then I thought I might try and get a few more minutes in."

"A few more minutes of feeling like a kid?" Leo wonders.

Karone rests her head on her knees. "You know, I've thought a lot about whether or not I'd change my past. If I'd take back the things I did as Astronema, for example. I've even thought about what it would be like if I could change being kidnapped, if I could have grown up with Andros and Zhane on KO-35. I guess I was… trying to imagine what that would have been like. Building pillow forts with them."

Leo nods. "I'm a lot of fun," he tells her after a moment, "But I'm no replacement for your brother."

Karone lifts her head, shakes it and looks fond. "No, you aren't. But I wouldn't want you to be. You were right, about trying to be a kid while I was actually a kid. It was good, and I enjoyed it," Karone says, grinning. Then she looks at him thoughtfully. "You're a good friend, Leo."

Leo grins at her. "Well, hey, anytime you need reminding what it feels like to be a kid, you know where to go."

Karone giggles, but Leo reach's out an arm for her, and Karone curls into it. He leans back against the wall, Karone at his side.

"There is no one else I'd rather build pillow forts with," Karone tells him quietly.

Leo smiles, glancing around at their very well constructed fort. "Likewise, Karone," he tells her, squeezing her shoulders, "Likewise."


End file.
